


Into the Wild

by Luzula



Series: The Shapeshifter 'Verse [3]
Category: due South
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Animal Transformation, Backstory, Episode Re-Write, F/M, Podfic Available, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-06-03
Updated: 2009-06-03
Packaged: 2017-10-03 04:17:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luzula/pseuds/Luzula
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the news of a wanted fugutive reached Fraser's detachment, he followed her into the mountains and found something he hadn't expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Into the Wild

**Author's Note:**

> This should stand alone, even though it's part of a series. I'm grateful for the support of the Ficfinishing community on LJ, and especially my first reader and cheerleader Waltzforanight. I also want to thank Zabira and Aria for useful beta advice.

The white of the snow was almost unbroken now that the trail had climbed above the treeline, so that the dark shape lying ahead of me drew the eye immediately.

So this was as far as she had made it.

I'd been tracking her for some time, ever since my detachment had received the news of a murder suspect on the run. She had fled across the border from Alaska in a light airplane, and the airplane was forced down by bad weather. The pilot had made it down to Haines Junction, but he said he'd lost his passenger.

She had fled into the mountains on foot, or he had abandoned her.

I'd taken a snowmobile at once. She was a wanted fugutive, but more, she was alone in the mountains, probably without any proper equipment, and would likely die soon if no one found her. Granted, the wind had died down, but the cold alone would kill her.

I'd found the airplane, mostly unharmed, but mired in the snow. The metal skeleton of it had looked fragile and abandoned, and no one was there. Her trail had been easy to make out, her steps sinking deeply into the soft snow. It had led away to the north, toward Fortitude Pass.

I had left the snowmobile and continued on snowshoes. I would have made better time if I'd shifted, of course, but I was on duty. I couldn't abandon myself to the instincts of a wolf, which was all too likely if I left my uniform and all the tools of a human behind.

And anyway, there was no need. In just a pair of boots, she would be slow, and I would soon catch up with her.

I had followed her trail until it rose above the last straggling trees. The wind-blown snow was packed harder here, and carried her weight without giving way. But her strength must have given out, or the cold taken her, because there she lay. The trail had ended, and there was nothing left for me to do but bring her body home.

But it wasn't her.

When I drew closer, I saw that what I had taken for a body was only a pile of clothes. I bent down and looked through them. A woefully inadequate coat, a pair of jeans, a shirt, a pair of boots, even underwear.

Away from the pile led the unmistakable paw-prints of a wolf.

I straightened, feeling almost light-headed. She was one of my own, a shifter. I hadn't known many of them in my life--wolves are mostly loners, except to their own pack. My mother, of course, had been pack to me, but she had been dead for many years. And Quinn, who had taught me what it was to be a shifter, I had left behind to join the RCMP. Since then, I had been walking a fine line between repression and the need to hide what I was, and the equal need of freedom for my other self.

That she was a shifter changed nothing--it was still my duty to bring her in.

No doubt, she felt herself safe as a wolf. Her tracks were light on the packed snow, and would be hard to track for an ordinary human. But I wasn't an ordinary human. Crouching down, I put my nose to the snow. Her scent was there, faint but clear.

I would be slower than she was, but I still refused to shift. If I did, we would be two animals, not an officer of the law and a wanted fugutive. Fortunately, I had taken enough supplies for several days. I packed her clothes and boots in my backpack--she would need them if she shifted back into human shape. Then I adjusted the straps of my pack so that it sat more securely on my shoulders and went on, making good time on the hard snow.

The land rose in steep curves, the kind of uphill slope where one thinks one is about to reach the top, but it's always just the summit of another foothill. I knew Fortitude Pass lay ahead of me, but I was caught in the details of the landscape. On a map, or from a plane, it all looks so clear, but on foot, one only sees the shifting hues of white, broken by the sharp black of rock.

High above the peaks, the sky was hazy with cirrus clouds, the ends of them upturned like the tip of a ski. Bad weather coming in.

I still went on.

Toward evening, I was high up under the pass, and the valley I had left lay underneath me. The trees were spread like a dark cape over the feet of the mountains, and the sun was sinking into a snarl of heavy clouds. The wind was picking up, softening the contours of the slopes with drifting snow. I tightened the hood of my parka.

Her trail, which I had only been following with difficulty, would soon be entirely lost.

But luck led me to her, luck and the nocturnal habits of wolves. A little way ahead of me, I saw suddenly a dark head poking out from a snowdrift on the sheltered side of an outcrop, and then she emerged, shaking herself vigorously. Sure of her escape, she had grown careless and slept during the day.

I drew my service revolver and aimed it at her. "Stop! Victoria Metcalf, you are under arrest!"

Her head turned, and she froze. I could hardly miss her at this range, even through the rising wind. I stared her in the eye, and made myself believe that I would shoot her if she moved. My body language must have conveyed it, at least, because she didn't move.

I moved nearer, until we were looking into each others' eyes. Hers were a warm brown, and she followed my every movement with the utmost attention. No wonder--I was holding a gun on her.

I saw the moment when she realized what I was. The wind was behind me and carried my scent to her. Her nostrils quivered, and then she started in surprise, pricking her ears forward.

The storm came fully on us then, and I stumbled and almost fell with the sudden force of it. There was no question of reaching Haines Junction that day, and no danger of her escaping from me, for that matter. Not even a wolf could travel in this weather. We both cowered down behind the outcrop, small creatures pinned down by the impersonal fury of the storm.

"I'm going to change!" I shouted to her, to be heard over the wind.

Indeed, I would have to if I were to survive. I took off my snowshoes and stepped into the hole where she had slept. It was a deep snowdrift, and I sank down to my thighs. I stamped out a larger hole and set up my backpack to further block the wind. Quickly and methodically, I stripped off my clothes. The windchill was instantly numbing, and my body shivered violently in a vain attempt to stay warm.

Changing was a relief. None of that bare, helpless flesh anymore, but claws and thick fur.

She looked at me, ears flattened back by the wind or by suspicion, but I moved to one end of the hole, and she came down beside me. It didn't seem to matter so much anymore, why we were here. She was a warm body in a place where everything was cold, and we burrowed further into the snow together.

***

Snow covered us, and we lay there for a night and a day.

In the darkness, I learned her sounds and her smells. Her ribcage rose and fell with her warm breath. She had a cut on one paw, and I licked it clean, learning her taste. Mostly, we slept, curling up close together for warmth.

I woke up hungry in the evening of the second day. Dimly, I remembered something about emergency food in my backpack, but it was human food in plastic bags. Plastic wasn't good to eat. I wanted meat.

I poked my head up through the snow, and found that the wind had almost died down. She stirred, too, jumping out and shaking herself thoroughly, from her head to the tip of her bushy tail. Pieces of melted and refrozen snow still stuck to her fur in places, and she leaned over to worry at them with her nose. I jumped out, too, looking at the newly swept landscape.

_Hunt?_ she said, turning her ears forward.

_Yes,_ I said.

We left the hole in the snow without a backward glance, all our senses alert for game. There was none on the open snow, and my belly rumbled with hunger. Later in the night, we found a deer down among the trees. It was old, and we brought it down together, tearing at its haunches until it bled out and fell.

We tore into it ravenously, and the taste of its blood on my tongue was satisfying. I filled my belly, and so did she.

I settled down beside her and licked her coat where it was spattered with blood. _We hunt well together_, she observed, and it was true. I lay down my head on her flank, feeling content. Food in my belly, a companion beside me, fields of snow that waited for my footprints. I had a vague sense that if I'd been human, this would be something I disapproved of. I flicked my ear, dismissing the complications of humans. There were so many things my human self thought I shouldn't do.

We slept, and ate again, and stayed in the forest for some time. But she wanted to move on, and we climbed the pass again, chasing each other playfully up the slopes. The outcrop where we'd rested last time was a known place, and we stopped there to rest. The human things I'd left there were snowed over, and I pawed at the snow, digging them out. It was as if I'd left my human self there, as well. Clothes, boots, backpack. I sniffed at the fur lining on the parka.

Then I saw the red of my uniform. Red. It caught my mind like the red of blood, just as compelling, but different. It tugged at the human part of me like a fish caught on a line.

My God. What was I doing?

I had no idea how many days I had spent as a wolf with her. Perhaps it was just one or two, but it could have been a whole week. I've no doubt that had she been in heat, we would have mated, and come summer we might have had cubs together, in some den in a sunny hillside.

No. I was human. With an effort, I wrenched myself from my wolf body and changed. Almost immediately, I started shivering, and I pulled my cold clothes on, shaking off the snow as best I could.

She was standing beside me, tail lowered uncertainly. Although I was human enough now to feel embarrassment that she had seen me naked, she showed no sign of it. She whined quizzically.

Victoria Metcalf was a murder suspect, I reminded myself. I would have to turn her in--there was nothing else I could do. Nothing else, I repeated to myself, as if the slightest deviation from duty would mean complete dissolution of my morals and my humanity.

"Victoria? I have your clothes here." I took them out of my backpack. "Will you shift?"

She blinked at me, and sat down on the snow. Her eyes were clear and brown and purely wolf. I looked down into them, trying to find the human being that I knew was there. It happened sometimes, that shifters lost themselves and couldn't change back. _If that's the case, then surely it wouldn't hurt to..._ No.

"Please." I took her head between my hands. "I know you're there."

She shook herself a little, then began to tremble. Her front legs stretched out to become pale arms, and black hair surrounded her face in a wild tangle. Her eyes were still brown.

She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.

She was also naked, and I turned away, blushing, as she dressed herself. "Victoria Metcalf?"

"Yes?" Her voice was hoarse, as if she hadn't used it in a while.

"I'm Benton Fraser." I felt strange introducing myself, because we knew each other already. We had run through the forest together, understanding each other without words. But now we were humans, and I had no idea what she was thinking behind that beautiful face. "Royal Canadian Mounted Police," I added reluctantly.

Her face grew hard and suspiscious. I wondered whether it was her human self coming back, or if it was the hostility of a cornered wolf. "And what? What are you going to do with me?"

"I'm afraid I'll have to bring you in."

"Why? Why can't you leave me here? No one will know you found me."

"I can't do that. I'm sorry. Will you come with me?"

"Or what?" she said, adressing the implicit threat in my words. I was stronger than she was, I had a gun, I had training in physical violence. We both knew that. "No, don't answer that. I'll come with you."

I shouldered the pack and we headed down towards the abandoned airplane and the snowmobile I had left beside it. It should have been an easy walk, downhill and over packed snow, in bright sunlight, but my feet were heavy. Partly it was that feeling I always had after changing, of plodding along ridiculously slowly on two legs, but it was more than that.

Victoria kept pace with me, not speaking. When we reached the softer snow in the forest, I unstrapped my snowshoes from the pack and gave them to her. She shrugged and accepted them.

The spruce trees wrapped themselves in shadow as darkness fell, as deep as the silence between us. There was no moon yet, but the sky was clear, and rich with stars. Every time I breathed in, the cold air stung my nostrils.

It was full dark when we reached the airplane, and my legs ached from walking in the deep snow. I broke the silence first. "We'll have to stay here overnight. It's too dark to drive safely."

Victoria didn't reply, and I rummaged in my backpack for a flashlight.

"There should be...ah, yes." In the back of the airplane, I found emergency supplies, including two heavy blankets. We needed food and hot fluids, so I took off my mittens and set up my small portable stove, pumping up the pressure in the gasoline flask. Carefully, I primed the burner and waited until it began to hiss, burning with a steady blue flame. Somehow, this lightened my heart a little--the cheerful light of the stove and the noise it made had often been my only companion in the wilderness. I scooped up snow in a pan and set it to melting.

I glanced up at Victoria's face. I couldn't read her at all--she might as well have been a statue. Painfully, I remembered how we had played on the mountain slopes, rolling around and mock-biting each other.

"Here." I gave her pemmican, a handful of dried fruit and a mug of tea. She ate hungrily, and so did I. When we had finished, I took out my sleeping bag and laid it out side by side with the blankets on the floor of the cargo space in the airplane. We were still warm from the hiking, and it wouldn't do to wait until we were cold before we went to bed.

I indicated that she take the sleeping bag, which was warmer, and she did so with a wry twist of her lips. "Now you're being chivalrous."

I said nothing to that, because there was nothing I could say. I wondered if she would try to escape in the night, but I was a light sleeper, and I would hear the airplane door opening. Strangely, I wasn't afraid that she would try to kill me.

In the darkness, I heard the rustling of the sleeping bag as she turned over. I was tired, but not sleepy, and the sound of her breathing seemed loud to me.

When she spoke, her voice was low but sure, as if she was telling a story she knew the words of by heart. "He didn't know about me, at first. He said he loved me, and I believed him. But then he caught me changing, and it was like I didn't know him any more. He was drunk, and he took a bottle, and I was caught in the corner. I don't remember what I did, but there was blood."

I lay there and listened, and I thought of my mother, who had been shot down as a wolf.

"It was self-defense, then?"

"Yes," Victoria whispered. "Please, let me go."

"In that case, you have nothing to be afraid of. Just tell the truth, and the court will listen to you." I had to believe that was true. My mother's killer had gone free, but surely society had changed since then. "I'll help you, I promise. I'll do anything I can."

"Except let me go."

"Yes. I'm sorry, I can't do that."

I could hear Victoria move beside me, turning her back. Sleep was slow in coming to me, and my thoughts chased themselves in circles.

I was almost asleep when I felt her shift closer to me. Her hand reached out, and the press of it against my chest shocked me, even through my clothes and two layers of blankets. I lay absolutely still, while she began to speak again. Her voice this time was barely a whisper, breaking off and beginning again.

"You could...we could stay here." Her hand stroked across my chest. "Go deeper into the mountains. No one would find us."

My eyes were closed, and in the darkness I remembered running. I remembered her warm fur and her heart beating close to mine as we rested._We hunt well together._

I could hear her heart beating now, a quick flutter too low for anyone other than a shifter to hear.

"How can you live like this?" She tugged at the collar of my uniform. "It's like a leash."

Her hand moved up to my stubbled cheek, light and tentative, and I turned my head to the side to touch my lips to her fingers. They were warm, despite the cold around us. I licked them, and she tasted somehow of home, though I didn't know exactly where that was.

"Don't you want to be free of it all? All those human things." She sounded bitter.

"Yes," I whispered. "Sometimes."

Then I reached out in the darkness to do something very human. I kissed her, bringing my chapped lips awkwardly against her cheek, and then her mouth. For a moment, we both lay still, and our warm breath mingled in the cold air. Then she tilted her head, and her hand took hold of the back of my neck. My mouth opened for her, and her tongue slid against mine. She tasted of pemmican and tea.

It was strange, how that small point of contact between us could so affect my whole body. I felt as if I should be glowing, lit up from the inside by desire. Breathing hard, I fought my hand free of the blankets and tugged her closer. My fingers dug down underneath her scarf and coat to find the warm, soft skin of her neck.

"Come with me," she murmured against my mouth. "Please."

I brought our mouths together again, because I didn't trust myself to speak.

Slowly, slowly, I fought myself down. This wasn't for me, it was none of it for me, and I should take my hands off her. I let go of her neck, then took her hand in mine and brought it away from me.

"Victoria," I breathed, but then couldn't deny her. Not yet. Let it wait until the morning. Instead, I pulled her close to me and buried my face in her hair.

When I slept, I dreamed of running in the snow. It was dusk, and I knew Victoria was there with me. Only, I could not see her--she was somewhere in front of me, or behind me. Sometimes I caught a glimpse of her grey fur, half hidden by drifting snow, and I chased after her. Or was she the one chasing me?

Finally, I sat down and howled in frustration and longing.

I woke at dawn, the light filtering in through the dirty windows of the airplane. Victoria was still sleeping, her cheek pressed against my shoulder as if she trusted me. I felt terrible.

I stared up at the curved bare metal above me until I finally found the strength to do what I must. Shaking her gently, I said, "Victoria. Wake up."

She stirred, then opened her eyes. I looked into them, and I think she saw what I was going to say before I said it.

"I'm sorry," I said. Her mouth twisted bitterly.

We ate breakfast, back in the silence that had lain between us yesterday. Sometimes she tensed, as if considering an escape, but I kept a sharp eye on her. Indeed, my eyes were drawn to her for entirely different reasons, and I found it hard to look away. Her black hair was unkempt, and I wanted to run my fingers through it and work the snarls out.

But I didn't. Inexorably, time passed. We finished our meal and I packed my things, and there was no longer any excuse not to leave. I started the snowmobile, and the deep growl of its motor cut through the silence of the woods.

We left for the detachment at Haines Junction.

***

Victoria was extradited to Alaska, to be put on trial in Juneau. I followed her there to offer my help, as I had promised.

When I visited her in prison before the trial she looked pale and somehow smaller than before, with her hair drawn back severely.

"Please. Tell me how I can help you. Do you have a good lawyer?"

"I don't need more of your help," she said, with a sarcastic emphasis on 'help' that made me flush.

"I promised you I would."

"Yeah, well, I want you to leave. I mean it." She stared into my eyes with a feral desperation.

I left.

Nevertheless, I kept myself informed about the trial. I'd been the arresting officer, and I suppose that explained my interest in the case.

Victoria's lover had been abusive even before he knew that she was a shifter. The dry prose of the courtroom secretary gave me the neighbors' testimony: sounds overheard from their apartment on the weekend nights, bruises glimpsed on Victoria's body.

She had not told me this, and I tried to see what lay behind the words she didn't say. I pictured her beaten, mute, until she finally struck back.

Eventually, Victoria was convicted. My hopes that the prejudice against shifters had changed since the days of my mother's trial were evidently unfounded. When I read the prosecutor's closing speech, I felt nauseous.

I wondered how she would live in prison. Would she suppress the change, curled into a ball in her cot at night and clenching her teeth against the pull of the full moon? Or would she give in, and scratch with her claws in vain at the door of her cell?

I shuddered. I couldn't imagine living like that. She would be shut up in a box a few square feet in size, denied the sky and the trees and the smell of the earth.

I cried for her and mourned her as if she were dead.

***

In Chicago, I lived undercover, as I always had, but this time it was more. I was undercover not only as an ordinary human, but as a Canadian. The advantage was, I suppose, that no one even came close to suspecting my secret. They were too distracted by my bright red coat and by my other pecularities.

The disadvantage of this was having no one to truly talk with, but I was used to that. Besides, I had Diefenbaker, of course.

I also had Ray Vecchio, loudmouthed and loudly dressed, but loyal in a way I hadn't encountered in a long time. He was my partner and my friend, and I was grateful to have him.

I wondered sometimes what he would think if he knew that every month at the full moon, I and Diefenbaker would get ourselves to a forest, slink into the shadows, and live for a night as wolves. It was so much less than what we really needed, but we got by.

Perhaps Ray might not shun me, after all. To him, it might be only another of the strange things I did, and he would shake his head affectionately and accept it.

But the habit of secrecy kept my mouth closed, and I said nothing to him.

***

The first time I saw her in Chicago, I thought I had imagined it.

It was only a glimpse, a flash of gray fur behind a dumpster in an alley. I suppose you might think one wolf is like another, and there isn't much to tell the difference. Or you might think it was far likelier that it hadn't been a wolf at all, but only a dog.

But I knew her. I knew the line of her legs, the hint of reddish brown on her muzzle, and the way she held her ears. In a brief moment, I felt the city fade around me, as if the clutter of its buildings was not the real world at all, but only a screen of some kind. The real world was one of trees behind trees and the scent of imminent snow cold in my nose. Then I moved, and bumped against the side of the dumpster.

"Victoria!" I called out, and ran around to where I had seen her.

There was no one there, of course. I went down on my hands and knees to see if I could catch her scent. It was maddening--I thought I could smell something, but it might as well have been conjured up by my own mind. Whatever trail she might have left was drenched in the mingled odours of piss, gasoline and the rotting remains of produce. I shook my head, huffing a breath out through my nose to clear it.

Dief came trotting around the corner.

"Do you smell anything?" I asked him. His senses were far sharper than mine were when I was human. "One of us?" I added in a low voice.

He went still, like a statue of a wolf, only the tip of his nose moving. Then he gave a sharp bark.

My heart thumped almost painfully in my chest at the thought that I might not have imagined her. Abruptly, I began to run down the alley the way she must have gone. I ran, and at the next intersection Dief turned right, and I followed him. People looked at us strangely, stepping out of the way, and when I went down on my knees to sniff at the pavement they pretended to ignore us.

But there was only the faintest trace of an imagined scent, and soon we lost even that. I closed my eyes, and saw again trees. Snow flakes began to drift on the wind.

We headed home. There was snow falling in my mind.

***

I moved the fries on my plate around listlessly. I couldn't seem to put her out of my mind, and those few days were as clear to me--no, clearer--than the diner around me. I remembered the way her fur felt against my nose, and her breath coming in white clouds in the winter air.

"You did the right thing, son. You did your duty--it's the only thing you could have done." My father appeared to be reading my mind.

"She's the only woman I ever loved, and I put her in prison. Duty's a poor excuse."

"She was a criminal. You had no choice but to bring her to justice."

"Perhaps." My father reached over from the opposite seat and began to eat my abandoned fries. "Dad...did you ever wish that you were a shifter?"

He looked surprised, as if it was a non-sequiteur, and perhaps it was. "Well, it doesn't seem to be doing you much good."

"No, I suppose not. But my mother--I mean, didn't you ever feel..."

"You know, Buck used to tease me that my wife was a better hunter than I was. But I always said, well, the more meat the better." He looked down at the fry in his hand and put it back on the plate. "She was a fine woman."

I nodded. I'm not even sure what I wanted to know--perhaps if he had ever wished that he could run with her.

"Well, I should get going, son. Duty calling." He tipped his hat at me, and I refrained from asking what duties he had in the afterlife.

I stared at the mostly-full plate, then stood up to leave. As I turned toward the cash register to pay, I saw a glimpse of curly black hair in the corner of my eye. Cursing myself for a fool, I turned to look. It wasn't her, of course; I was seeing her on every street corner now.

Except it was. It was her.

I ran, out of the diner and past, over, through the cars that were in my way. They honked their horns at me, but I never noticed, desperate to catch sight of her again.

Gone again. Perhaps I was going mad. Or perhaps there was another ghost haunting me. Of course, my father had never been so elusive, even though I might sometimes wish he was.

The waiter was knocking on the window of the diner, waving a piece of paper in the air. Oh, of course. My bill. I went inside to pay, and when I turned to leave, there she was, so beautiful it felt like a stab to my gut.

We spoke, and she was smiling at me. My hand brushed hers, and it was warm, warm and solid and real. She wasn't a ghost.

I wanted to touch her again.

***

We shopped for groceries and then went to my apartment to cook like civilized people.

Dief knew what she was, of course, and he followed her every movement with alert caution. "Dief, it's all right. I know her. She's one of us," I said. He relaxed a little, and sniffed her delicately. Victoria let him, holding out her hand.

She looked elegant, beautiful, civilized--no one would ever think that she was a shifter, but I felt it. Her scent had just a hint of musk in it, and there was a fluidity to her movements that drew my eyes. I wanted her so much that it was an ache in my whole body.

"How are you doing in the city?" she asked when we were seated at the table, eating dinner.

"Oh," I said, stalling. I was so used to not talking about the things that were important. This question might have been innocuous from anyone else, but not from her.

"It's not easy, is it?" She stretched her hand out to touch mine.

I shook my head.

"So why are you here?"

"I was stationed here. It's my duty." Her expression didn't change, and I didn't know how else to explain. Either she understood that, or she didn't.

"Oh, Ben. You haven't changed."

"Neither have you." I wanted to ask about her years in prison, but didn't. I wished we could shift--there would be no need for this hesitation, these frustrated human attempts at communication.

After dinner, I walked Victoria to her hotel, and I wondered if I would ever see her again.

But she came back. She stood there again outside my door, not long after she had left, and there was a bitterness in her eyes that reminded me of how she had looked when I turned her in. "Did you think we could pretend it didn't happen? How could you do it?"

I couldn't stand her looking at me like that, and I felt sick to my stomach with guilt. I wrapped my arms around her and felt the tension vibrating in her body. She knotted her hands in my shirt, to push me away or to pull me close I couldn't tell. "How could you do that to me, huh? How could you do it?"

I kissed her, and it was like setting a match to wood doused with kerosene. Her hands dug into me fiercely, and her mouth met mine. I slid my hands into her hair, pulling her still closer. _Door_, I thought, and spared a moment to slam it closed. Then we went toward my bed, trying to get into each other's clothes. It felt almost like giving in to the urge to change at full moon, as if I would emerge a different creature after this.

I fell backwards onto the bed, with her weight on top of me. I spread my legs and rocked up against her, anything for more of the maddening pressure of her body against mine. Her fingers were against my skin, in my hair, in my mouth.

She pulled my shirt over my head impatiently, half trapping my arms. I tugged it off and pushed my hands in under her shirt and found her breasts. I wanted my mouth on them. She took off her shirt and brassiere, dropping them on the floor. I drew her down to suck on one of her nipples, and she moaned, sitting up again.

Then she sat back, pinning my legs under her, and unbuttoned my jeans and tugged them down a little. When she took my erection in her hand, I gasped and tried again to pull her close to me, but she stood up quickly to shed the last of her clothes. Then she straddled me and sank down on my erection with closed eyes, biting her lip.

_Just like that?_ I thought, surprised for a second, and then there were no coherent thoughts left. I took hold of her hips, thrusting slowly up, and she gasped. I looked up at her. Her face was partly shadowed by her hair, but I could see that her mouth was open and her eyes closed.

Then I licked my thumb and put it down between her legs, searching, trying to make sure she felt the same pleasure as I did. She drew in a breath and shuddered, then tugged my arm away.

"Lie still," she murmured, holding my arms down at the wrists. She moved on me, and I met her every movement with one of my own, until it felt impossible that I should last for one more.

"Oh, please," I gasped, "let me touch you. Let me kiss you."

She leaned down and kissed me. It was rough, with teeth, but I didn't mind. My arms were free, and I held her tightly while I groaned and came inside her. She was all around me, her weight heavy on top of me, her hair in my face.

I lay there, panting as if I had run for miles, while she slid off and lay beside me, stroking my chest. I didn't think she had come, though, and I propped myself up on one elbow to look down at her.

I slid my hand up along her belly to hold her breast, and lowered my mouth to suck on it. This time, she didn't interrupt me, and I took my time, feeling the tightness of her nipple under my tongue, circling and playing with it. When I finally looked up, there was a slight smile to her face, and her eyes were half closed. She drew one leg up in a clear invitation.

I moved down, to kneel on the floor and put my mouth on her there, too. I had never done this before, not with a woman, but the anatomy was clear to me, at least. With a feeling almost of reverence, I began licking, slowly and tentatively at first, but then with increasing confidence as I learned her reactions.

My chin and nose were wet with her, and I wanted to do this forever. When she hitched her hips up demandingly, I slowed down, and she moaned in frustration.

"Oh, Ben, please. Please." The low, rough sound of her voice so excited me that I almost grew hard again. I reached up to take her nipples between my fingers, and licked at her again and again. She gasped and shuddered, and I could feel her legs tense around me as she came. I kept my mouth there until she flinched and pushed me away.

Suddenly shaky, I realized that I still had my jeans and underwear most of the way on. I took them off and came up onto the bed again, pulling the blanket over the both of us. She tensed a little when I held her close, but then she relaxed.

"Victoria," I whispered, kissing the nape of her neck. "Victoria."

***

On Saturday morning, I woke and realized that I needed to go out and buy food. We had stayed in the whole previous day, spending most of it in bed (indeed, Victoria had tied my hands to it with my own lanyard and sucked me until I was incoherent). Dief had left us to our mating and charmed his way into a neighbor's apartment, where he was horribly pampered and fed with cookies.

The world outside my apartment was as it had always been. Cars honking on the street, trash in the alleys, a group of teenagers on the corner smoking cigarettes. But I felt changed. The fingers that picked groceries from the shelves on the store were the same ones that had been deep inside her last night. We belonged to each other now, and nothing could change that.

Lost in these thoughts, it took me a second to recognize what I smelled when I opened the door of the apartment again. Blood.

Instantly, I was alert, but I couldn't quite make sense of what I saw. Ray, on the floor, motionless and bleeding.

"Ray!" I shouted. Distantly, I heard sirens. I went to my knees, trying to staunch the blood. Then I looked up again.

"Victoria? Victoria!" There was no reply.

Ray stirred feebly. "You missed my pool night," he whispered, and damn, that was true. I'd been too caught up in Victoria to remember.

"I'm so sorry, Ray." But he was already out again.

The door burst open, and two uniformed police officers came through. "Hands up!"

"But--"

One of them aimed a gun at me. "Hands up!"

I held them up, red with blood. "I'm only trying to stop the bleeding."

A paramedic came through the door. "We got a call from a neighbor who heard the screaming. Out of the way."

One of the police officers read me my rights. "But I'm--"

"Yeah, yeah, you might be innocent, I know. It's standard procedure."

I knew that, yes.

"This looks like an animal attack," the paramedic said, and I finally had to stop pretending. Victoria. But why? How? What had happened?

"Do you know anything about what happened here?" the officer asked me.

I shook my head, dazed. "No."

"Well, I'll bring you along to the station."

"Ray--"

"Let the professionals take care of it, okay?"

At the station, Huey clapped me on the back with sympathy in his eyes. "I'm so sorry, Fraser, but sometimes it happens. Animals can go crazy, and Dief's a wolf, not a dog. He's not meant to live in a city."

"Dief? But he's with the neighbors," I said without thinking.

"He is? Well, we'll check that out." Huey frowned. "You sure you don't know anything about it? Ray was attacked in your apartment. You guys working a case that might've endangered him?"

I shook my head mutely. In fact, I had no earthly idea what could have happened. I was carefully not thinking about the fact that I was withholding pertinent information from the police.

Gardino came up to us, and he was looking strangely at me. "I was just on the phone, and we have an anonymous tip. It's kind of--weird, though."

I knew instinctively from the way Gardino looked at me what the tip had been, and there was only one person in Chicago who could have given it. I was cold suddenly, clammy with sweat, and I tried desperately to find some other explanation.

"What's the tip?" Huey asked.

"That Fraser's a shifter, and he went crazy and attacked Ray."

Huey's eyebrows went up. "What? That's absurd."

"Yeah, I know. But it's not like we have other leads at the moment, except for Dief."

Gardino turned to me. "Fraser, I'm sorry. We'll have to check. But hey, it's not like we believe it, you know?"

I nodded automatically.

"Go down to Mort and give him a blood sample, okay?"

***

They had to check, but no one took the accusation seriously yet. It would take a week or so to analyze the blood samples; I had until then before my life and career in the RCMP was ruined. Only, I was sunk in a kind of fatalism--on some level, I supposed that it was fair. At the very least, there was an ironic kind of symmetry in my fate and Victoria's. I supposed that was why she had done it.

I wanted desperately to see Victoria again, though I didn't know what I would say to her.

At the earliest opportunity, I visited Ray at the hospital. He was pale, but conscious, and the bite wounds were less serious than the amount of blood on his clothes and on the floor had led me to believe. He had struck his head on the kitchen counter while falling, and was held under observation for concussion.

"Hey, Benny," he said, smiling a little.

"Ray," I said, and looked him in the eyes with an effort.

"You have any idea what happened back there? 'Cause they tell me there's some weird-ass accusation against you. Like you turn furry when there's a full moon, or something." He looked at me steadily.

I couldn't possibly lie to Ray while he lay there in a hospital bed, wounded on my account. Not that I had literally lied to anyone yet, but I owed Ray the truth. I swallowed.

"Do you remember the woman in my apartment yesterday morning?" Ray had come by when I hadn't turned up at work, worried that I was sick. He'd been delighted and congratulated me when he discovered that I was 'getting laid', as he put it.

Ray nodded. My tongue grew thick in my mouth, but I went on. The story wasn't easy in the telling, but I managed, finally, to get it out. Ray knew it all, now.

His first reaction wasn't one of revulsion or even surprise that I was a shifter, and I felt lightheaded with relief. "She was setting you up the whole time! Fucking bitch."

Incongrously, my mind inserted the thought that yes, she was indeed literally a bitch when she shifted. I felt like giggling hysterically, but I suppressed it.

"I don't know. Perhaps she was," I said instead.

"Sure she was. Where is she now? Do you know?"

I shook my head. Could it all have been a lie? Was it possible to lie with your whole body, to lie when you were making love?

There was a knock on the door. Huey and Welsh came in, and Welsh sat heavily down in the other guest chair.

"Constable, I'm afraid we're going to have to arrest you."

I bowed my head.

"Fraser, don't do that! You're innocent," Ray said.

Welsh sighed. "We're still waiting for news on the blood sample, but meanwhile, we checked your apartment. There were traces of two different wolves in there."

Of course. And they weren't even her tracks.

"Constable, I really am sorry. But there's pressure from above, and it'll be out of my hands if I don't do anything. The FBI agents who specialize in, well, shifters who run amok got wind of the case. They say shifters sometimes turn schizophrenic and can't control their wolf side. Especially in cities."

"I'm sorry, Fraser," Huey said as he cuffed me. The cold metal closed around my wrists with a quiet snicking sound.

"Wait!" Ray said from the bed, and then winced as his gesture tugged at his wound. "Fraser, tell them about her! I'll do it if you don't."

I didn't say anything, and Ray spoke instead. He told them about Victoria, but carefully omitted any mention of myself as a shifter. Ray was trying to offer me an out, and selfishly, I took it.

"Constable, is this true?" Welsh said.

I nodded.

***

Ray came to let me out of prison the next day. He'd put together money for bail. I knew there was no way he could afford that, but he had still done it.

At the station, Welsh met us with a somber face. "Your Metcalf woman is dead, Constable," he said bluntly. "She died in a car accident in Alaska. Vecchio, did you ever actually see this woman?"

Ray shook his head reluctantly. "No, sir, I didn't."

"Fraser, we checked your apartment for fingerprints, and the only ones there were yours and Detective Vecchio's. I'm sorry." His voice was almost gentle.

I felt dizzy, and sat down abruptly on the nearest chair. For a moment, I considered the possibility that I was delusional, and that Victoria had been only a ghost conjured up by my loneliness. That I had attacked Ray and lost all memory of it.

Then I remembered that Victoria had mentioned her sister dying in a car accident. I brought my hand up to my neck, and fingered a bruise left there from our love-making. No. She was real.

And I had to find her.

***

That evening, I wandered the dark streets of Chicago with Dief at my side. I started at the dumpster where I had first seen her, but no one was there.

I passed bars where loud music played in rhythms that vibrated in my bones and made Dief shake his head in irritation. I passed drunks who looked at me with unfocused eyes. I passed dark, abandoned parks.

But I didn't see Victoria.

"Dief, do you smell anything?" I asked for what felt like the hundredth time. Dief glanced up at me and licked my hand.

I had come to another park, the edge of it sharply illuminated by streetlamps, but the light quickly gave way to darkness and the indistinct, half-seen shapes of trees and bushes.

"Ben," said a low voice ahead. I stopped short, as if she would run away if I made the slightest move.

"Victoria," I breathed. I could see the pale shape of her face and her hands. Even with my night vision, her hair and coat blended into the darkness around her. Her expression was sharp and intent, shadowed by leaves.

"You must really hate me for what I did," I said.

"Yeah. Hate. Love. Those two emotions about cover it."

"What do you want, Victoria?

"You."

"No, you don't," I said, but my heart beat faster, as if I still believed it.

"Why do you think I did all of this?"

"Revenge."

"Maybe. But I need you. I want you to go away with me."

"You know I can't do that," I said automatically.

"Why not? You don't have much to stick around here for. And you won't like prison."

"How did you survive it?" I finally asked.

She looked down, and her hair hid her face. "There was a yard. Grass. Two maple trees. They locked me in that yard at full moon, and I learned every inch of that space. Once, I tried to bite through the fence, but it hurt my teeth."

"You never told them about me."

"No."

"Why not?"

"I thought about you, when I was in there. You were free. Still running."

_I'm not free,_ I wanted to protest. She met my eyes again, and her voice sharpened. "Anyway, they know what you are now. Ben, meet me tomorrow night." She gave me an adress.

I didn't reply, and she didn't wait for me to do so. Instead, she took off her coat and let it fall to the ground. Underneath it, she was naked, her body pale except for the dark triangle of hair between her legs, but I only caught a glimpse of her. She was changing, blending into the night and slipping away, and then she was gone.

I stood there for a long while, silent and confined in my clothes, before I went back to my apartment.

***

It was a field on the outskirts of the city, the edges of it blending into abandoned industrial lots and the encroaching trees. It was dusk, and I pulled my leather jacket closer around me in the chill. Dief stood still beside me, ears forward and alert.

I still didn't know why I had come to her, but I knew that I had to.

There was a movement in the bushes, and there she was. She was a wolf, padding silently towards me, and I could not stop looking at her. I drank in the sight of her as if I had thirsted for days. Twenty meters away, she paused.

"Victoria."

She gave a half-growl, half-whine, then turned towards the distant trees and pawed the ground. _Come with me_.

My mouth was dry, and I tried to swallow. "I can't," I said, although I could hardly say why any longer. There were reasons, but they were distant and she was here. My senses were sharpening, reaching for her and the dusk and the dew falling on the grass. I wanted to shed my clothes and run.

She began to walk away, and I stood still. Ray. My duty.

Behind me, I heard cars coming closer, and I knew that they were coming for us. They'd had me followed. Of course.

I began moving towards her, and Dief moved by my side. She glanced back and barked, speeding up. I began to run, and with the running came a wild sense of joy. There would be no more hiding. No more complications.

Within me, a new word trembled: _pack_. We were a pack. Victoria turned back toward me, leaping up to welcome us home.

"Watch out! She's attacking!" a voice behind me shouted, and hard on the heels of it there was a tremendous noise in my ears and in my body, a clamor of nerves and my legs faltering and the wet grass in my face. I felt Dief licking my face and whining.

She was leaving me. Running on without me. I tried to move my legs, but there was only pain and confusion and then nothing.

***

The ceiling was white. No, a light beige. This single piece of information floated around in my mind, and I felt peaceful and blank.

"Benny?" a voice said, trying to sound calm, but I could hear worry underneath.

Ray. I tried to turn my head, but the effort was too much. Then he was gone, or I was gone.

The next time, the angle of the sun was different. "Benny, you there?"

"Yes."

"Oh, thank god. I thought you were going to die."

"So did I." I tried to clear my throat. "Could I have some water?"

"Sure, just let me..." Ray tentatively tried to lift me up enough to drink, until a nurse came in and helped me with cool, professional hands.

Ray waited until the nurse was gone, and then said, voice lowered, "Hey Benny, Victoria was not your fault. It could've happened to anybody. You were blindsided."

I turned my head (I could do that, now) and looked at Ray, at his dear face and the bandages on his arm and chest, and told him the truth. "I was going with her, you know."

"I know. I was there. The doctor didn't want to let me out, but I had to be there." He looked down at his hands, then up again, meeting my eyes. "I was the one who shot you."

"Oh."

"I mean, I didn't mean to. She was going to attack you, we all thought she was, and then." He took a deep breath and turned away. I tried to think of something more appropriate to say than 'oh', but didn't come up with anything.

"Shouldn't you still be in the hospital, too?" I finally said.

"It's been almost a week. You've been sleeping a lot. Oh, and I got them to scrap those tests. You don't have to worry."

"Tests?"

"You know. The blood tests. I mean, once they saw she wasn't a delusion of yours, you weren't under suspicion any more."

"Oh." I'd almost forgotten. "Thank you."

"Don't mention it, Benny."

Ray knew about me, but he didn't mind. It had been longer than I cared to think about since someone close to me had known I was a shifter. My mother, long ago. Quinn. My grandparents. My father, I suppose. Ray's acceptance eased something inside of me.

I breathed in, and the pain when my ribcage expanded felt blurred and far away--analgesics, probably. Ray had shot me. It had been an accident, but I was still lying here in a hospital bed, and she was gone.

"They haven't found her, you know," Ray said.

I blinked, and it was an effort to open my eyes again. I wasn't sure if I really did. The ceiling was beige, but it looked white. It was snow, unbroken except for the tracks of a wolf.

I knew they were heading north.


End file.
